MU Peeves Thread
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This is something I’ve noticed in the last few days after talking to various friends within the hobby. And that is the getting over the ‘sunken cost fallacy’ regarding their involvement with mushes that prevents them from moving onto something else that might make them happier.
I think this is a general sentiment among a great number of folks, and not just indicated in exclusivity with mushes, so this could just as easily be a RL Peeve too. At least three conversations I’ve had this week have been from how they are unhappy with the game their on, but haven’t decided to cut their losses. To note, this is not regarding the same game, but three different ones. I tried asking why they still stayed and almost always the answer is usually something revolving around ‘I still have friends here’ or ‘I’ve put a lot of time into it’ or ‘I don’t like giving up’ to name a couple things I’ve heard. All valid responses, but I suppose my usually thought is if that fact overrides how unhappy you seem when you(general you) talk about it. And well, I get that so hard. I think it just sucks because they’re my friend seeing them unhappy in a hobby that I know they enjoy.
Speaking for myself, I know I’ve used all those reasons myself as an explanation to stay on a game. But I was still relatively unhappy until I realized I was logging in more because I enjoyed talking to people than actually doing anything on the game itself, so I sought more that social element than playing. It took a long time to just move on and find another game to try. I also think there may be some kind of stigma still about leaving a game. Or at least, maybe a self-perceived stigma that isn’t actually there. I dunno, just something I had been thinking about this morning.
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@Testament I have a personal rule. If I find that a game is making me consistently unhappy or frustrated to log into, then I take a few days break. If at the end of those few days I haven’t missed logging on then that’s the end of my time on that game.
Life is too short to do something for a hobby that you don’t find more fun than not.
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@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:
I tried asking why they still stayed and almost always the answer is usually something revolving around ‘I still have friends here’ or ‘I’ve put a lot of time into it’ or ‘I don’t like giving up’ to name a couple things I’ve heard.
A big one for me aside from most definitely feeling like it was a shame to just walk away from a place I had put so much time and effort into was that it was essentially the only game in town, and that’s something I heard more than once from others as well.
But like, that was also a fallacy. MU*dom is such a tiny corner of the larger RP hobby, and it’s easy to forget that p. much a bajillion other formats exist that not only will very likely scratch that itch if you just give them a chance, but might even come to be more enjoyable in some ways.
Again, all that frustration is guaranteed not to be worth it!
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@Pyrephox Excellent advice, and a much more reasonable benchmark than my current ‘sobbing in the bathtub’ one
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@Wizz said in MU Peeves Thread:
But like, that was also a fallacy. MU*dom is such a tiny corner of the larger RP hobby, and it’s easy to forget that p. much a bajillion other formats exist that not only will very likely scratch that itch if you just give them a chance, but might even come to be more enjoyable in some ways.
It can also be really nice to step back for a bit and remember why you enjoy it. The grinding away when it’s not is what makes it unfun sometimes. I’m winding down a break of a handful of months that I feel like has been pretty energizing (maybe, we’ll see).
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I don’t think it’s wrong to log in primarily because you want to maintain social contacts with the people you enjoy the company of. I don’t find that shameful at all! Like, we do have alternative means of ooc chat (I’m better about discord these days!) but not everyone is comfortable with giving access to other communication platforms, ect.
I also think it’s okay if someone’s venting is stressing YOU out or putting you into problem solving mode, that you can tell them that. Or maybe that it might be better if you guys chatted more about game stuff. Or that you primarily chatted about game stuff. I have in the past had a very high tolerance for venting where it really didn’t affect me much. In the last several months I have to be a little more careful about that now, depending on how close I am to that person.
I also think that sometimes it’s more stressful hearing someone tell you how much they hate things/don’t have fun/nothing is working/ect. when you’re waiting on/engaged with them a lot in the IC side of things too. For me that can be a trigger for distress because like then I worry if I’m not doing enough or conversely, I can see that it’s not me at all, it’s just that what they actually /want/ from the game isn’t really what I can do. Which I totally get! But it can kind of be a twinge to the feels/feel like rejection and I feel very much that I’ve got to stay on top of keeping that feeling a ME problem (in the sense that it’s not their problem when they’re just being honest, they’re not actually rejecting me at all, and they are in no way blaming me for their down feelings about the game because again, it’s over things I don’t have control over! But I am human too and even though I KNOW better, sometimes it’s hard to not slip into the rejected feeling.)
And you know, I’ve been on the other side, a lot. Thankfully I have better friends than I deserve and plenty over the years have said “I
you and I’m sorry you’re having a hard time but I can’t take that on–it feels like you want me to solve stuff? Is that really the case, or do you just need someone to vent to? Vent away about X,Y,Z but Q is a little too close to home.”But in my experience, both in seeing friends go through it and going through it myself, is that it’s almost always NEVER really about the game. Leaving that game isn’t going to help the rut they’re feeling they’re in, especially if they don’t have anywhere else to go. It won’t help the stress of feeling disconnected (unless they find people go to with, probably, but maybe they’re not yet at the stage to ask). They may actually have a very accurate assessment of how much energy they have to actually make things happen elsewhere/on current game, and WISH they could or it would fall into their lap but they know they don’t, so staying where they can still chat with their peeps and tread water is where they should be.
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@mietze said in MU Peeves Thread:
I don’t think it’s wrong to log in primarily because you want to maintain social contacts with the people you enjoy the company of.
This. We have a few players who, well, frankly don’t actually play. They’re active participants in the community all the same, just not in the classic sense. Nothing wrong with that.
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@Wizz said in MU Peeves Thread:
MU*dom is such a tiny corner of the larger RP hobby, and it’s easy to forget that p. much a bajillion other formats exist that not only will very likely scratch that itch if you just give them a chance, but might even come to be more enjoyable in some ways.
I’ve had to admit to myself repeatedly, and honestly as recently as this week, that I don’t actually want to play or even run a MU*. The way prose flows in the MU* format doesn’t actually engage me and I don’t feel like I’m getting the necessary return on my time investment.
What I want is to run RPGs on a regular cadence with a reliable pool of players. My joy is in building a premise that sparks creative engagement, figuring out what players are trying to achieve with the characters they’ve created, and then delivering experiences that allow them to realize those desires in ways both expected and surprising.
I’ve tried many different formats of games over the years and MU* came closest, but I know I’m still not as into it as many are for the format itself. Maybe the exact thing that I need doesn’t yet exist.
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Could be RL could be MU peeves, but when you start up an old laptop looking for something and it auto-opens your MUSH client and tries to automatically log in to a game you no longer play at while you frantically try to hit cancel.
This has happened to me more than once. I need to stop having things auto connect. Sorry person playing that roster now, I wasn’t trying to hack you I swear!
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I have had huge success with using mush as a platform alongside Fantasy Grounds for stat and sheet stuff, with a reliable group of players for an OTT game. We don’t have anything running right now but the online tabletop model (schedule game sessions, everyone show up at the same time) might do what you’re looking for.
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@IoleRae said in MU Peeves Thread:
I have had huge success with using mush as a platform alongside Fantasy Grounds for stat and sheet stuff, with a reliable group of players for an OTT game. We don’t have anything running right now but the online tabletop model (schedule game sessions, everyone show up at the same time) might do what you’re looking for.
When I’ve been able to keep a group going reliably we’ve used Roll20 and that’s been great, especially for the Blades in the Dark and Scum & Villainy games where there are some excellent interactive sheets available. The issue has been that folks those groups are of child-raising age or have otherwise busy lives, so not reliable or regular in availability.
I could start looking for open tables or try to assemble a game blind but that’s a very daunting proposition. A big advantage of MU* games is that you get plenty of time to meet and vet other players before you start devoting the time investment of GMing.
tldr; Sounds like I need to find another way to expand the pool of players I can draw from
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@shit-piss-love said in MU Peeves Thread:
The issue has been that folks those groups are of child-raising age or have otherwise busy lives, so not reliable or regular in availability.
Yeah, there’s no getting around this, unfortunately. You want people with other things going on in their lives (way less headache and drama than with the nolifers), but that makes it hard for scheduling. We could really never do more than two sessions a month, and I rarely had everybody at the table we had scheduled for it. This was the same as with my meatspace tabletop game though too, so I think that’s just how it works.
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@IoleRae said in MU Peeves Thread:
@shit-piss-love said in MU Peeves Thread:
The issue has been that folks those groups are of child-raising age or have otherwise busy lives, so not reliable or regular in availability.
Yeah, there’s no getting around this, unfortunately. You want people with other things going on in their lives (way less headache and drama than with the nolifers), but that makes it hard for scheduling. We could really never do more than two sessions a month, and I rarely had everybody at the table we had scheduled for it. This was the same as with my meatspace tabletop game though too, so I think that’s just how it works.
The solution is obviously just to sabotage my friends lives so that they have more time to play make believe games.
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@shit-piss-love said in MU Peeves Thread:
@IoleRae said in MU Peeves Thread:
@shit-piss-love said in MU Peeves Thread:
The issue has been that folks those groups are of child-raising age or have otherwise busy lives, so not reliable or regular in availability.
Yeah, there’s no getting around this, unfortunately. You want people with other things going on in their lives (way less headache and drama than with the nolifers), but that makes it hard for scheduling. We could really never do more than two sessions a month, and I rarely had everybody at the table we had scheduled for it. This was the same as with my meatspace tabletop game though too, so I think that’s just how it works.
The solution is obviously just to sabotage my friends lives so that they have more time to play make believe games.
LOL, yeah.
My actual advice is to pad your numbers; if you need 6 players to have a good time, schedule 10. Setup the game so “between sessions” the characters are doing something that means they can be left in town / at camp / doing something else when they don’t show up.
Make the adjustments on the game side, rather than the player-finding side.
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@IoleRae said in MU Peeves Thread:
LOL, yeah.
My actual advice is to pad your numbers; if you need 6 players to have a good time, schedule 10. Setup the game so “between sessions” the characters are doing something that means they can be left in town / at camp / doing something else when they don’t show up.
Make the adjustments on the game side, rather than the player-finding side.
This is good advice. I have tried this once however in the past and what happened was, of course, now everyone was regularly available and 8 people at the table was just too much. Can’t win!
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@IoleRae I used to use Dahan’s Saga Edition code to help run in-person tabletop Star Wars games. It was great for leveling up, creating NPCs, etc.
And then life found a way… to screw up scheduling.
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i hate that this thread is just endless scroll and i bet there’s a setting to make things paginate but also i’d rather post a gripe about it
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@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
i hate that this thread is just endless scroll and i bet there’s a setting to make things paginate but also i’d rather post a gripe about it
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@shit-piss-love Oh thank god, bless you
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Wusses. TAKE IT ALL AT ONCE rawr!!